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Chris Weidner: Experience the highs and Lowes of the American Alpine Club

By Chris Weidner, For the Camera

Posted:
02/26/2013 09:05:27 PM MST

Updated:
02/26/2013 09:11:35 PM MST

George Lowe on his way to making a solo ascent of Dhaulagiri, the seventh highest mountain in the world. He had to fight for survival (in his words, "solve the problem") on the stormy descent.
(Photo: George Lowe collection )

After a successful climb of Dhaulagiri, the world's seventh highest mountain, George Lowe became lost on the descent. It was dark, stormy and he was utterly alone -- a textbook way to die in the Himalaya.

It was 1990 and he had just accomplished a rare solo ascent of the peak. Fighting fear and exhaustion, Lowe systematically tried one gully after another. He climbed down, then excruciatingly back up, thousands of feet of steep snow and ice until he found his camp.

It was a superhuman effort.

"You just have to keep plugging," Lowe said in an interview with Climbing magazine two years after the ordeal. "You have to keep working with the problem until you solve it."

The problem?! He talks about life and death in such an eerily rational way -- it seems fitting that he earned a Ph.D. in physics and worked for years as a systems engineer.

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And then there's his other life, as one of America's most accomplished alpinists for the last 50 years.

One week from today, at the American Mountaineering Center in Golden, Lowe will present "Fifty Years of Extraordinary Adventures" -- a 60-minute journey through his remarkable climbing career so far. Lowe's presentation is just part of the American Alpine Club's inaugural Front Range Section Dinner event.

Everyone is invited to this get-together with beer, spaghetti and crazy contests.

Chris Weidner
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PAUL AIKEN
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I've been waiting to hear Lowe speak for a long time. As a budding alpinist in my early 20s, I idolized Lowe for his out-there first ascents. But before I continue, let's be clear on which of the uber-talented Lowes I'm talking about.

George H. Lowe III, originally of Ogden, Utah, is the cousin of brothers (and climbing partners) Greg and Jeff Lowe -- also famous climbers from Utah. The late Alex Lowe, who demonstrated a similar mastery in all genres of climbing, is unrelated to the others.

George now lives in Denver. He is 68 years old and still climbing feverishly. He is a pilot, father of three and a 45-year member of the AAC. After working for years as an engineer he became a "consultant" to the U.S. government. His exact job is top secret. As he jokingly tells Carol Kotchek, chairwoman of the Front Range Section of the AAC, "If I tell you what I do for work, I'll have to kill you."

In his show March 6, Lowe will present stories and photos from his outstanding climbs, like his 1974 first ascent of the north face of North Twin in the Canadian Rockies. Lowe and his partner Chris Jones faced atrocious weather thousands of feet up the sheer and remote wall of shattered limestone, snow and ice. Retreat was impossible, and the route above appeared the same. While Jones was nearly immobilized with fear, Lowe kept trying different options, leading one way after another (taking a 60-foot fall in the process) until he found a way.

When they finally topped out, Jones wept.

You'll experience other groundbreaking Lowe firsts, like the Infinite Spur on Mount Foraker in Alaska, the immense Kangshung Face of Mount Everest (dubbed the Lowe Buttress after George led the crux sections) and the near-perfect route that Lowe calls his "best climb:" the north ridge of Latok I in 1978.

Alpinist magazine accurately called it "one of the strongest climbing attempts in the history of alpinism." After climbing more than 100 pitches of rock, snow and ice, Lowe and his three partners retreated just 500 feet short of the top due to illness and storm. Thirty-five years and more than 25 attempts (from the world's best alpinists) later, no team has even matched their high point.

Join George Lowe and the AAC next week for a night of fun and inspiration. Personally, I can't wait to hear more from the guy who said, "Climbing has taught me that most limits exist only in my mind."

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